


Less Than

by RectifiedPear



Category: Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Genre: Deception, Lies, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Trust Issues, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Tension, WIP Tags, liars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-07-23 00:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20000821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RectifiedPear/pseuds/RectifiedPear
Summary: Life is less than many things, and can be full of less than moments, but when something chews at Lady like fleas, she proves to be more than others expect of her.





	1. Trustworthy

**Author's Note:**

> I have many plans, and will be working on many things, so this one will be a project of potentially shorter chapters or later edited chapters. Typos might happen(correct me should I falter, as always dear readers), but this work has an uncertain amount of chapters atm, it might end at twenty, it might end before that many, it might surpass that many. 
> 
> Where this is headed isn't likely where anyone expects, and guessing you'll possibly trip yourself up. But when I began writing LatT, this was my first idea, and it was one I often go for that people overlook. Knowing me personally, one might know the path, but this site, it is hard to know anyone personally. So enjoy the ride, and have fun.
> 
> Oh and each chapter title will possibly connect to the fiction title. "Less Than Ideal" for example, or the more bluntly "Less Than a Week", it's something that might regard the chapter, or simply the mood. As this is not a fic where things are to be... how they are.

Everything had gone wrong since the absence of her son. Lady had witnessed it all with such support, such passion. Her heart bled for everyone hurt in the situation. Her son leaving had left them all distraught. Tramp, Collette, Annette, Danielle, Jim Dear and Darling, Jim Jr. Even Tramp had been changed. His attitude had been 'he'll come back', but after the picnic it had soured. 

Lady trusted him with such blindness, the same as she did her humans, but even her humans could lie, and Tramp had been lying for a long time now. He'd look for Scamp and return, teeth clicking as they ground together and muttering words she could not understand. It was not a sight Lady liked. 

The closest to such anger Lady knew was when Jim Dear and Darling fought before Jim Jr. What she later understood as pregnancy, given she'd been pregnant when she'd come back. It had an effect on females, took them out of their element. In truth it had made Lady mouthier, but Tramp was not her. He did not shrivel back when she lashed out, he laughed and called it spunk, spirit, said she had fight under all the purebred looks. 

Silence had gripped her, she'd stuck to the background, watching, nonspeaking. She was a spectator in her own family's life. Darling credited it to Scamp being gone, but it was more than that, it was far more. Scamp gone she could believe in. Pull from all her doubts and disbelief that he could be his father a second time, he could go and be fine without them all. She kept her mouth shut on that, of course. Her daughters were sulking on and off, though Lady suspected it was more due to the humans. They didn't like Jim Jr being too sad to play.

If their owners had not cared, her other pups might have shrugged him off save for occasional memories and what-ifs. More so had Tramp's own demeanor not soured once, twice, and again. Again, and again, and again. He was an image of his past self to an extent. Pacing and scrunching up his face, looking haunted. Lady watched her troubled mate pace and worry. It was more his diet than his own food.

Their son gone could not possibly be eating him up like this. 

He'd been fine with it, insisted a few months would straighten Scamp out. Spoken as if their son was just a confused pup, and one day it all soured, twisted on itself. Like Darling saying something was fine and when asked if it was really, screaming and breaking down into tears and emotions. Not fine. 

She was a background character in her own story, wafting from place to place. Doting upon a surly mate, sulking daughters, one human pup who spoke short words; mostly her son's name, and two humans who didn't understand what had happened, but were managing without decently enough.

And then...

She was laying on a porch with Tramp every night, feeling something dead between them, a kindness gone. There was an anger in his face, a betrayal. He spoke their son - _their son_ 's- name in contempt, in annoyance. Nights were quiet, she listened, like a good house dog would. But Tramp's story was full of holes, lies, things she'd never seen him say and do. Her mate was betraying her and at the same time pressed closer than he'd been in awhile.

It was supposed to be right, and for a few nights, it felt right. His anger became passion, teeth into scruff, haunches moving in rhythm. She was no stranger to their love making, though they did not want more puppies, they still joked about trying. A joke that was dead in the air. Jim Dear and Darling were likely to re-home another litter, or perhaps the older litter in exchange for the young. They did not know. Lady felt, deep down, her pups might all be like Scamp; they belonged elsewhere and for her to expect some happy family... maybe it was all her being selfish. A greedy house pet like some dogs had said. Fed kibble and scraps and yet always hungering.

They slept on the porch more, humped in the yard, with the accursed dog house and chain that made everyone moody not quite out of sight. She'd glance at it, vision hazy with pleasure, and wish she had the power to knock the tiny structure down and break chain. 

It was only a day or two later some dog she didn't knew came calling her husband's name. Sulking in the background after being startled, only the mention of her son's name kept her from telling the female her own size to beat it. Dogs did not come around Tramp for much else than a taste of what he was, some legend, a tale, a wild street dog she'd won and was losing hold upon.

_”Breaks a new heart every day. He's a tramp, they adore him. And I only hope he'll stay that way.”_

So Lady did nothing. She laid upon the porch and she waited, and she did not rise to return to her humans. She laid in that spot, the one he'd left warm. Until it faded to cold. Maybe she was wrong. _Maybe Scamp means more than I think he does._

But when Scamp was back, the how and the why was vague and just words tangled together. Tramp had found him at the pound, brought him home. That was it. Nothing else. Though her son's eyes screamed otherwise. Lady watched, eyes going from one to the other, suspecting so many things. But hoping for the peace lose to return.

Lastly, she looked upon Angel, the newcomer. She felt nothing about a new dog, and had only played complaint because everything else felt petty -and Lady didn't want to be petty and bitter to another dog just because her husband was hiding things, her mate! Everything had come to a close now. Scamp was bathed, as was Angel, and her three daughters. He seemed happy to be home, she seemed happy to have a home.

But as Lady crept along, stuck to the background and not saying a word, unnoticed, she took in her mate's feature's again. Tramp should have been relieved and relaxed. Returned to who he'd been before. But he was not. Tension had settled over his slightest expressions. He was the same as he'd been. 

Lady felt her guts churn in annoyance. What would her husband hide so intently from her? What wouldn't he entrust her with? She slide from the room, teeth burying into a soft toy. It had never been like him to keep something from her, even his tramp ways were elaborated upon before. The fabric, aged since she was a pup and not as strong, let out soft popping and tearing noises as she shook her head.

_So why are you hiding things from me?!_


	2. Naive

An unspoken secret looms all around her. It is all through the family. Tramp will not speak on it, Angel will not, Scamp will not, if her daughters know -and she has pieces of paranoia that they do- they won't speak either. It itches down her spine and through her bristling tail like fleas. Days, weeks, she counts them as it passes. Counts and waits and expects some of what they had to come back. 

It's not. There's sex, and play, and learning to talk to Angel without finding her concerning. Learning to acknowledge that Scamp dodges his answers to certain questions, that Tramp romances her and plays her like a fiddle. Her heart is eager to make him smile, and when it means doing things they haven't done since before the puppies, she bounds at the chance to. And he is nothing but pleased after.

Lady wants to feel pleased. She wants the euphoria of his fervor and interest in her body to be some kind of sign. After the kids Tramp was a dad, dedicated and loving, but he had been aloof as well. Their sex lives had vanished, it was all nursing puppies and fetching Scamp away from whatever he chewed upon. Bathing Danielle twice as much as Collette and Annette. Listening to them gossip. Looking picture perfect before Trusty and Jock. Walking with their humans. 

Jim Dear and Darling having a child made it all feel normal. A routine Lady and Tramp could live. But Scamp had broken that. Scamp had wanted to be wild. _Then why do you sit so calm now?_ She had never expected Tramp nor their son to burn out on wanderlust, yet his behavior has changed entirely. He's still full of fire and energy, but he's happier here for the while. 

Secretly she hopes it'll change. That his fire will return once being cozied up with his friend wears off. The lack of anyone being confrontational has left a hole within her. Lady's a good dog, a great dog, she wants to be the best dog, but something's wrong and no one will tell her what. The sex and the routine now held in place by pins and needles.

Lady couldn't live this. Some fairy tale of pretending nothing had ever happened and her son had not poofed for a length of time, ended up in the pound, and gotten rescued by her mate. There was nothing within that which would excuse how Tramp had become transfixed after the incident during Jim Dear and Darling out picnicking. No, something was missing.

Accepting answers would not be found here, Lady decided to plan another way to get answers. There were methods. Barkings, calling out to others, scent trails. Though she'd never been great at tracking, she could ask. Lady's body tensed and relaxed, the mostly destroyed toys were now discarded for her own thoughts, anger peaking and dropping as she paced.

She slipped along, expecting someone, their people, her daughters, her son, his friend, someone to stop her. Darling was on the phone, and merely glanced up, then smiled. Jim Dear was doing something called ironing to his pants. Angel was asleep with two of her daughters, the third was sprawled across a cushion ripped from its place on the couch. None of them stirred, and she could not find Tramp, but suspected he was with Jim Jr., maybe Scamp as well.

The dog door flap yielded to her easily enough, and Lady skirted through a hole in the fence from the neighbors playing ball too hard. It had been tacked over with a thin screen and tacks, which popped out at her pushing. Out, she pushed it in place and raced off, Darling had trained her for a good long time, she knew not to panic. Not for days, and Lady would be back by night fall. 

She crossed the street after a glance, eyeing many dogs along the way. None were those she'd seen Tramp around lately, nor Scamp. There had been new dogs lately, acting best friends with her mate and child, and it had not eluded her, though Tramp had the charisma of a winner and could make friends with someone wanting him dead in a blink.

She'd barely taken them in until now. Until everything was odd. Until their dynamic was skewed sideways and she was losing the blind trust she held for her son, for her mate. If they were hiding something, it was big, right? It had to be big. Something big, maybe scary had happened to Scamp.

Running along the walkways people used, she looked ahead, trying to find one of 'those dogs'. She came upon, one, the only female she'd encountered aside from Angel among them all. She was tall and lanky, skinny, too skinny. She had sagging skin in places and the look of someone who had bore far too many young. Her eyes were tired, she wore a collar upon her neck, like any owned dog did, but her owner was nowhere to be seen. But she had seen the owner. Same as the dog. The female was often to a tree, tied right outside of stores, sitting. A quick look over confirmed that Lady had seen this female before. 

“You know Scamp.” She spoke, soft, and moved in her line of sight.

Stared down at, the female above her crinkled her face up in amusement. “Of course, little lady.”  
Her voice was raspy, like when people pulled on smoke sticks and stank the house up, they had a dozen names for the stuff, like they did bottles of acidic brew that made them dance funny.  
“Not exactly much of a 'hello' dog, are you?”

Any other day she would have been one. “You know where Tramp's been.”

Her mouth twisted upward, then into a long smile. Something sinister flashed and died within her aged eyes. Her jowls hung limp, no growl, no fang. “Old Ruby knows many things, but that, _everyone knows_ that. Not a soul around _doesn't_ know where Tramp has been.”

Her body quivered as she stood up straight, toes perched upon. This dog looked aged beyond her, but she still locked eye contact upon her. “Except me.”

Lights danced about Ruby's eyes, reflections from streetlamps and something else lit up as she found the dog smiling wide, her shoulder motioned as she turned on Lady, eye contact ripped away. “Sounds to me like you're the only one living in the shadows. How does that feel?”

“Awful. Will you tell me,” she hung upon the name, then spoke it with a smile, “please, Ruby?”

“I suppose I could tell you some things, but won't Tramp be looking for you if you go looking for answers?” Her expression was unreadable, hidden behind her haunches and her shoulders, Lady followed her, and thought upon those words.

“If he didn't want me to look, he'd have told me..... right?”

“Makes sense to me.” Ruby was walking off the path, dog tags jingling on her collar and well trimmed nails clicking pavement until they padded grass. “I'll show you where, and you can find your own answers, okay? We're both big girls, no paw-holding here.”

Ignoring how her hackles raised, Lady smiled back, a forced one, “Right. Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ruby is not written to be evil or good, more as she was in the film, a questionable character resting in the middle. She neither acted out and committed any real atrocious sins, nor did she do anything really redeeming. There was nothing to her character but a tired female among a bunch of men who all had ended up washed up and abandoned. Neutral as she is, I can see her walking the line. Definitely don't see her going evil. Though she strikes me as ever the Devil's advocate.


End file.
